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Released by: Lionsgate
Released on: February 28th, 2023.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Cast: Val Kilmer, Bruce Dern, Elle Fanning, Ben Chaplin
Year: 2022
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B’Twixt Now And Sunrise: The Authentic Cut – Movie Review:
In 2011, Francis Ford Coppola decided he wanted to make a low budget horror movie so he used some of his own money and set out to do just that. He shot it digitally to keep costs down and to allow for easy post-production tinkering and he did it without any major studio interference. The end result was Twixt and it was released domestically on Blu-ray through Fox. More than a decade later, Coppola has returned to the movie and re-edited it, releasing it through Lionsgate as B’Twixt Now And Sunrise: The Authentic Cut.
The story? Val Kilmer headlines as an author named Hall Baltimore. He was once at the top of his game but years of heavy drinking and hard living have seen his career slide a bit these days. To promote his latest book he attends a signing in a small town and, like every small town in every movie ever made, it has a dark past - kids have been murdered. After arriving, one of those kids appears to him in the form of a female ghost named V (Elle Fanning) which spurns him to investigate. This is not a completely selfless act, however, as he sees in this story the making of his next book and hopefully a career comeback.
As he starts poking around in the town's history, strange things start occurring. Not only is V wandering around communicating with him but so too is the ghost of a certain man who calls himself Poe (Ben Chaplin). As he and the town's sheriff (Bruce Dern) try to figure out what's going on, the story of the town's past begins to mix with Baltimore's own life in some strange and eerie ways.
You've got to admire Coppola at this stage in his career. He's done his time, paid his dues and carved out his well-deserved place in movie history and so it's interesting to see him basically 'go indy' on us with a bizarre project like this. It's a shame then that the movie wasn't better. While it's not the complete disaster some would make it out to be, the movie starts off strong but quickly becomes so absorbed with its own visuals that the story splinters and never quite recovers. Sure, the picture is always pretty to look at but after we voyage into the film's black and white (and red) nightmarescape once, heading back for repeat visits quickly becomes old hat and frankly quite unnecessary. As such, what begins as interesting to look at soon becomes repetitive and overused.
Where the movie succeeds, however, is with the performances. Elle Fanning does have some nice ghostly presence here and is well cast as the mysterious V. She looks fantastic all made up in her spectral garb and she has enough of an otherworldly vibe to her that she really does a great job on the part. Bruce Dern isn't really breaking any new ground here but he's fun in his supporting role while Ben Chaplin does a decent Poe and he looks the part as well. The biggest surprise, however, is Val Kilmer. No longer the marquee draw that he once was, it's hard not to notice that he's no longer the cut young man who brought Jim Morrison to the big screen. But that hardly matters, in fact, it works in the movie's favor. He's believable as an over the hill alcoholic writer no longer at the top of the heap, and he does the role justice without ever going too over the top.
So yeah, there are parts of this movie that work, a few that even work really well, but the plot and the self-absorbed repetition of certain visual tricks eventually sink the movie once we get past the initial setup, which is admittedly well done. Coppola is making (and apparently remaking) movies for himself at this point, and no one can really blame him for that. It's just a shame that this time around he let the flaws in the plot get in the way of some slick visuals and solid performances, something that isn’t really fixed at all in this new version of the movie. At least at seventy-nine minutes, it’s short.
Mild Spoilers:
As to the changes in this cut, most of them are towards the end of the film where Poe and Baltimore are on the cliff discussing loss and how to channel it into art. It's an interesting change and one that is likely stemming from Coppola's own experiences losing his son. It's a better ending, more poignant and mature than the originally released version. It doesn't fix all of the movie's problems, but it does improve it.
B’Twixt Now And Sunrise: The Authentic Cut – Blu-ray Review:
Lionsgate brings B’Twixt Now And Sunrise: The Authentic Cut to Blu-ray framed at 2.00.1 widescreen and in AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer. This was shot digitally and so there are no issues to detail in regards to print damage, dirt or debris. Detail is generally pretty decent but the vast majority of this movie has been tweaked in post-production in an attempt to give it an otherworldly color scheme, so don’t expect the colors to look especially natural for much of the film, although when they are supposed to look that way, they do and the image is fine. There aren’t any problems with obvious compression artifacts to gripe about. This would seem to be pretty true to source.
The English language 5.1 Dolby TrueHD track on the disc that is quite good. It spreads around the score and effects quite nicely and while it never hits reference quality levels, it sounds pretty solid. There’s a strong low end here when the movie calls for it while dialogue always sounds clean, clear and concise. As you’d expect for such a recent feature, there are no issues with any hiss or distortion to note and the levels are always properly balanced. Optional subtitles are provided in English and Spanish.
The main extra on the disc is Twixt: A Documentary by Gia Coppola. This is a collection of thirty-eight minutes of behind the scenes footage shot by the director’s granddaughter who was on set during the making of the movie. There’s some marginally interesting footage in here and it does give you a glimpse of what it was like on set, but you’re not really missing anything if you skip it.
Aside from that, get menus and chapter selection options. This release does come with an insert containing a code redeemable for a high definition download of the feature.
B’Twixt Now And Sunrise: The Authentic Cut - The Final Word:
B’Twixt Now And Sunrise: The Authentic Cut isn’t any better than the original version, the film is still a mess despite some interesting visuals and some pretty good acting. Lionsgate’s Blu-ray edition looks and sounds just fine but doesn’t add anything new to the extra features when a director’s commentary probably would have gone a long way towards making this worthwhile.
Click on the images below, or right click and open in a new window, for full sized B’Twixt Now And Sunrise: The Authentic Cut Blu-ray screen caps!
